Nick Kupper, a retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant, tells American Family News he deeply loves his country but fears the direction it is headed.
“Much of the degradation of our society can be placed at the feet of the Democrats, who are trying to change everything,” he says.
Kupper is one of several candidates running for District 25, a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives. He is running for the Republican nomination, which will be decided in August of 2024.
The liberal Left is attempting to destroy the country’s basic foundational principles, the nuclear family, the sanctity of life, the education system, a person’s God-given gender, and more. While each of those issues are incredibly important to him, he says securing the border remains a prime concern.
As an Arizona resident, Kupper says he is an eyewitness to what the Left is doing there which is trying to "change the makeup of our country through illegal immigration.”
President Donald Trump “had the right idea” about building a wall to secure the border, he says, but the Trump administration did not have to face the "invasion" happening right now.
"So, what changed?” he asks. "It’s the policies—policies that are incentivizing illegals to come across the border.”
According to him, “[an illegal alien] gets benefits, often a free ride in some city, and can effectively stay [in the U.S.] indefinitely.”
Just how bad is the situation in Arizona? It's so bad the state's Democrat governor, Katie Hobbs, is begging the Biden administration for help. A letter she sent to the White House last week complains about the "failure to secure the Arizona border" and requests a $512 million reimbursement to the State of Arizona for using its own resources.
"For far too long, Arizona has continued to bear the burden of federal inaction in managing our southern border," Hobbs wrote in the letter. "The recent decision to close the Lukeville Port of Entry has led to an unmitigated humanitarian crisis in the area and has put Arizona's safety and commerce at risk."
Finishing the border wall may not stop everyone from coming into the country illegally but Kupper contends it would serve as a deterrent. He recently took a firsthand look at the border. In an area outside the district he’s running in, the border wall ends.
“I could have hopped across a canal and literally landed in Mexico,” he tells AFN. “I didn’t see a Border Patrol agent and I didn’t see a camera anywhere. There was nothing stopping me from going to Mexico or anyone coming into the U.S.”
While there is an overwhelming number of military-age men crossing the border, he also notes that there are also children with or without their families who are entering the U.S.
“Many of these people are dealing with a harsh environment and some bad actors,” he warns, noting the associated “horror stories” about rapes, child trafficking, and more.
Most crimes are crimes of opportunity, including illegal border crossings, he explains.
“If you can remove that opportunity or make it much more difficult to get into the country, you're naturally going to have fewer people attempting to do it,” he contends.
If people are disincentivized from wanting to cross the border, Kupper is hopeful many would not want to risk their lives to do it. For those who wish to enter the country legally, he says there is a process for that and that process could benefit from more administrative personnel.
For him, finishing the wall must be a priority.
“In the military,” he explains, “we are taught that if you have a wound that’s bleeding out, you have to stop the bleeding before you treat anything else.”
The most serious wound to the country right now is the open border, he argues.
“The bleeding—the massive influx of people—has to be stopped," he warns. “If we don’t stop it, America as we know it will bleed out and die."
